He Was a Pupil of Mine... Before He Turned to Evil

Lately, I've taken to listening to Air America--the liberal AM talk radio station--on my drive home from work. Considering that I work in a city that was mentioned most recently on the news for one of our residents who claimed that God sent Hurricane Katrina to smite New Orleans because of their policies on abortion, it's nice to hear the opposing viewpoint.

Plus, they've got Jerry Springer on in the mornings, and I frigg'n love that guy.

But when I tuned in tonight, I noticed that "Majority Report" host Sam Seder seemed uncharacteristically happy, especially considering that he was talking about Tom Delay. This could mean only one thing.

Something bad had happened to Tom Delay.

Now that's the kind of thing that'll pique my interest. Unfortunately, I'd been dragging around 25,000 paperback sci-fi and fantasy books at work today and hadn't had a chance to catch up on the news, so aside from a few comments a caller made and Seder's jokes about Delay wearing an orange jumpsuit, I was in the dark. So--much like I do when I need some information on how the Darksoul works--I called Scott.

As it happened, Representative Tom Delay (Republican, TX) has stepped down from his post as House Majority Leader after being indicted by a grand jury on a felony conspiracy charge for funnelling corporate money into a political action committee.

Scott and I agreed that this was good news, although Scott was quick to add that he was amazed that Delay was getting indicted while Karl Rove--a man that I find despicable for a litany of reasons--was still allowed to walk around free. I mean, if the guy didn't get locked up for leaking the identity of an undercover CIA agent, the whole smear campaign about John McCain's "illegitimate black baby" should've gotten him at least a punch in the face.

"Hey, slow down, Scott," I said. "We've got to get through Grand Moff Tarkin before we take on the Emperor."

Scott laughed for a minute. "You know," he said, "that's a pretty good analogy for those guys. Rove, Delay and Bush really are like the Emperor, Tarkin, and Darth Vader."

"Yeah?"

"Sure. I mean, Bush is the guy that you kinda want to like, right? It's just that he's been manipulated by all these evil forces into becoming a bad guy. And wouldn't it just be awesome if it was like Return of the Jedi, and Karl Rove got indicted and they called Bush to the stand, and he stood up and said: 'I can't lie for this man any more!'"

"What, you mean like throwing him down the shaft in the Death Star?"

"Exactly! And then you'd see him standing all blue and translucent with Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. Because really, if anybody's Yoda out there, it's Jimmy Carter."

As always, Scott had completely blown me away.

"Hell, Scott. I think you just made me like the Prequels."